January 2009

01/26/2009

Memories of childhood Valentine’s Days came to mind as I decorated our window for the upcoming holiday. In grade school we decorated shoe boxes or lunch bags with paper hearts, ribbons and lace which when finished were placed on a table or counter in the classroom. Each day we’d peek inside our box to see what cards or wrapped candies had been added since the day before and sad to say… waged odds on the boy and girl in the class who would end up with the largest number of cards/gifts in their box come Valentine’s Day.

At home, we made cards for family members. On them we would share a quality about the individual that we loved the most and offer a gift/task that showed our love for them. Mom and Dad were easy. Doing the dishes or ironing for Mom put you in good graces for a week… and making macaroons, rolling pennies or washing the car for Dad made him happy.

It seems that Valentine’s Day always fell on Monday through Friday back then. I remember waiting for Dad to come home from work. He’d always walk into the house with one hand behind his back. I wonder now how he managed to carry a dozen roses and a huge heart shaped box of chocolates for Mom and three smaller heart shaped boxes for us kids without dropping one or crushing the roses. Mom always cooked his favorite dinner… fried liver and onions with mashed potatoes and roasted peppers. After the dinner dishes were done, Dad would start humming a tune, take Mom by the hand and they’d waltz in the middle of the kitchen. When the dance ended Mom would grab brother Ron and Dad would grab me and sister Barb and we’d all dance. I stood in the center of that same kitchen recently and couldn’t imagine how the five of us used to dance in it. Granted us kids were smaller then, and my parents were smaller than I am now; but as a child dancing with Dad, the room was a grand ballroom.

01/11/2009

Dear Tech Support,Last year
I upgraded from Boyfriend 5.0 to Husband 1.0 and noticed a distinct
slow down in overall system performance, particularly in the flower and
jewelry applications, which operated flawlessly under Boyfriend 5.0.In addition, Husband 1.0 uninstalled many other valuable programs, such as:Romance 9.5 and Personal Attention 6.5,and then installed undesirable programs such as:NBA 5.0, NFL 3.0and Golf Clubs 4.1.AlsoConversation 8.0 no longer runs, and Housecleaning 2. 6 simply crashes the system.Please note that I have tried running Nagging 5.3 to fix these problems, but to no avail.What can I do?Signed,Desperate.

DEAR DESPERATE,First, keep in mind, Boyfriend 5.0is an Entertainment Package, whileHusband 1.0is an operating system.Please enter command: ithoughtyoulovedme.htmland try to download Tears 6.2 and do not forget to install theGuilt 3.0 update. If that application works as designed , Husband 1.0should then automatically run the applications Jewelry 2.0andFlowers 3.5.However, remember, overuse of the above application can cause Husband 1.0to default to Grumpy Silence 2.5 , Happy Hour 7.0or Beer 6.1.Please note thatBeer 6. 1is a very bad program that will download theFarting and Snoring Loudly Beta.Whatever you do, DO NOTunder any circumstances installMother-In-Law 1.0 (it runs a virus in the background that will eventually seize control of all your system resources.)In
addition, please do not attempt to reinstall the Boyfriend 5.0 program.
These are unsupported applications and will crash Husband 1.0 .In summary, Husband 1.0is a
great program, but it does have limited memory and cannot learn
newapplications quickly. You might consider buying additional software
to improve memory and performance. We recommend Cooking 3.0and Hot Lingerie 7.7.Good Luck!Tech Support

Last year I upgraded from Girlfriend 7.0 to Wife 1.0 and noticed that the new program began unexpected child processing that took up a lot of space and valuable resources. No mention of this phenomenon was included in the product brochure. In addition, Wife1.0 installs itself into all other programs and launches during system initialization, where it monitors all other system activity.

Applications such as Pokernight 10.3, Drunken Boys Night 2.5 and Monday Football
5.0 no longer run, crashing the system whenever selected. I cannot seem
to keep Wife 1.0 in the background while attempting to run some of my
other favorite applications. I am thinking about going back to Girlfriend 7.0,but the un-install for Wife 1.0 does not work.

Can you help me, please!!!

Thanks,

Lord Joe NevanenMission, TX

Tech Support Writes Back

Dear Lord Joseph:

This
is a very common problem male employees complain about, but it is
mostly due to a primary misconception. Many people upgrade from
Girlfriend 7.0 to Wife 1.0 with the idea that Wife 1.0 is merely a
UTILITIES & ENTERTAINMENT program. Wife 1.0 is an OPERATING SYSTEM
and designed by its creator to run everything. It is unlikely you
would be able to purge Wife 1.0 and still convert back to Girlfriend
7.0. Hidden operating files within your system would cause Girlfriend
7.0 to emulate Wife 1.0 so nothing is gained.

It is impossible to
un-install, delete, or purge the program files from the system once
installed. You cannot go back to Girlfriend 7.0 because Wife 1.0 is not
designed to do this. Some have tried to install Girlfriend 8.0 or Wife
2.0 but end up with more problems than the original system.

Look
in your help files under “Warnings-Alimony/Child Support”. I recommend
you keep Wife 1.0 and just deal with the situation. Having Wife 1.0
installed myself, I might also suggest you read the entire section
regarding GeneralPartnership
Faults (GPFs). You must assume all responsibility for faults and
problems that might occur, regardless of their cause. The best course
of action will be to enter the DOS-command C:\APOLOGIZE or click the I'M SORRY Icon for Macintosh systems. In any case avoid excessive
use of the ESC key because ultimately you will have to give the
APOLOGIZE/SORRY command before the operating system will return to
normal. The system will run smoothly as long as you take the blame for
all the GPFs. Wife 1.0 is a great program, but very high maintenance.

Consider
buying additional software to improve the performance of Wife 1.0. I
recommend Flowers 2.1 and Chocolates 5.0. DO NOT, under any
circumstances, install Secretary With Short Skirt 3.3. This is not a
supported application for Wife 1.0 and is likely to cause irreversible
damage to YOUR hardware.

01/10/2009

We're still pulling this all together. This is going to be another "kitchen project"... In other words... it will be ongoing for the next 2-3 months at least. The rack is suspended from the ceiling on an 8 foot track that allows us to move it easily across the room. We decided to turn it around so that we are sitting in the center of the living area, not the rack. This gives us more room for visitors. We still have some wiring issues to deal with. We are loving our 28" monitors. It's much easier to read our e-mail now and playing games is almost lifelike. This is where you will find us on cold, snowy evenings like tonight. :)

01/04/2009

Daughter Barb and I spent the afternoon with Gabe at Barnes and Noble in Enfield. We had a wonderful time checking out all of the neat books for little boys, and revisiting some that were his Mom's and Nanny's favorites when we were kids. That's one thing about books... the good ones you never tire of no matter what your age. Here's my little ray of sunshine.

Santa brought the kids 3 new beds and a variety of new toys. Bill's always telling me to "be careful what you ask for". We had a conversation one day about beds for the kids. I've lost tract of how many fluffy pillow beds and mats we've bought for them over the past 2 years. These guys can't just turn around 5 times and lay down. They have to dig... turn around... dig some more... turn around... dig some more.... turn around.... dig some more....then lay down. Meanwhile, all of this digging is wearing out the fabric and the next thing we know, our living quarters are filled with white fluffy batting. Do you realize how much batting is compressed into one of those little beds??? When uncompressed, it can cover a 12' x 12' area 1" deep. This fall we got rid of all of the beds and mats and gave them all blankets. Their toys were put in a cardboard box which was kept under our computer station. The toys only found their place in the box when we had a notion to get them out from under foot. The box quickly became a sleeping area, and whoever got there first tossed the blankets and stuffed toys that remained in the box around until everything felt comfortable then laid down. Bill suggested building them wooden beds to sleep in. I didn't like the idea of stubbing my toes on a wooden box, so I said we should look for low plastic totes. They are easy to wash and low profile. One of our payday trips to Torrington and Big Lots solved the problem. For $15 each... not $20 or $25 or $50 which you would pay for a dog bed... we found these handy canvas totes with attached canvas covers. They are perfect! A few more dollars for stuffed toys and inexpensive pillows and we have 3 fantastic toy box beds. We placed the pillows under the cover so they can't dig at them...put the stuffed animals and blankets on top so they can be moved around to suit the current resident. Now everyone is happy, including my little toes. :)